Every time I read this paragraph that C. S. Lewis wrote, I am devastated by its profound implications. By all accounts, Lewis himself did take this view of people, treating them with an extraordinary amount of care. Oh, would that I saw this more clearly and then lived it.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners—no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

– C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

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About katiekind

Enjoying the second half of life. I have three sons who are the apples of my eye and a wonderful husband of 35 years--those are the important things. Long ago, out of the blue, I became a Christian. It was something I never planned on, but what joy it has been. I do website development and I like to read and garden and paint and I love beauty and truth.

Books Read in 2016

The Bible Tells Me So
The Thirteenth Tale
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
Into Thin Air
A Month in the Country
Father Melancholy's Daughter

Books Read in 2015

Orphan Train
An Altar in the World
The Nightingale
The Way We Live Now
The Magnificent Ambersons
Wolf Hall
An Unnecessary Woman
Unforgettable
Poking a Dead Frog
The Awakening
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
Gone to Earth
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Ordinary Grace
True Grit
A Vintage Affair
The Persian Pickle Club
Fair and Tender Ladies

Books Read in 2014

And God Spoke
The Road
Single & Single
Riding Rockets
Living on the Border of the Holy
The Rapture of Canaan
State of Wonder
All the Light We Cannot See
Quartet in Autumn
The Chaperone
Speaker for the Dead
Introducing the New Testament
Unbroken
Call the Midwife
Gone Girl
Thirteen Moons

Books Read in 2013

Memoirs of a Geisha
Firstlight
Wuthering Heights
Bel Canto
Moonfleet
The Tiger's Wife
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
The Poisonwood Bible
What's So Amazing About Grace
Red Sparrow
The Fallen Angel
The Dark is Rising
City Boy
Year of Wonders

Books Read in 2012

Hannah Coulter
The Grapes of Wrath
Dracula
Keeping Faith: A Novel
The Honk and Holler Opening Soon
The Franchise Affair
A Game of Thrones
11/22/63
The Alto Wore Tweed
Bridge of Birds
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
The Life of Pi
Snow Falling on Cedars
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Gilead
Emma

Books Read in 2011

Follow the River
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
A Prayer for Owen Meany
My Antonia
The Last Word
The Woman in White
The Prisoner of Zenda
The Quotidian Mysteries
The Turn of the Screw
Enchanted April
Sacred Rhythms
How to Make an American Quilt
How Green Was My Valley
Cross Creek

Books Read in 2010

The Power and the Glory
The Memory of Old Jack
The Secret Adversary
Travels With Charley
Lonesome Dove
In Defense of Food
About a Boy
Gilead
Rebecca
The Help

Books Read in 2009

Marley and Me
The Supper of the Lamb
The Secret Garden
Little Lord Fauntleroy
A Little Princess
A Thousand White Women
Seabiscuit
Absolute Truths
The Secret Life of Bees
The Story of Christianity
And God Spoke: The Authority of the Bible
Green Dolphin Street
The Billionaires' Vinegar
Unaccustomed Earth
So Brave, Young and Handsome
My Name is Asher Lev
The Stone Diaries
The Education of Little Tree
In This House of Brede
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers

Books Read in 2008

The Brothers Karamazov
Peace Like a River
Anna Karenina
Water for Elephants
Cry, the Beloved Country
The Reason for God
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Grave Mistake
Surprised by Hope
Precious Bane
The Shack
The Divine Hours